After bringing two world indoor records in consecutive years with Yulimar Rojas in the triple jump in 2020 and Grant Holloway in the 60m hurdles in 2021, Madrid 22 takes the World Athletics Indoor Tour Gold show to the next level. On Wednesday 2 March, Madrid will hold a mixed triple jump contest which will include both men’s and women’s world indoor record-holders.
Yulimar Rojas already set the first of her two world records at CDM Gallur with a huge 15.43m leap in her last attempt two years ago. In 2021, the 26-year-old would break the world outdoor record with 15.67m on her way to become the Olympic champion in Tokyo. She added that gold to the silver she had claimed in Rio 2016, the two world indoor titles won in Portland 2016 and Birmingham 2018 and the two world outdoor titles won in London 2017 and Doha 2019.
Burkina Faso’s Hugues Fabrice Zango knows how to triumph in Madrid too. Also in 2020, the 28-year-old won the World Indoor Tour overall title with his 17.31m jump in the Spanish capital. The next year he would become the first male athlete to leap over the 18-meter-barrier indoors with 18.08m and would claim the bronze medal at the Olympics.
Alongside them will be Spain’s Ana Peleteiro. The two-time European indoor medalist —gold in 2019, bronze in 2021— reached her best shape of her career at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, where she took bronze with a Spanish outright record of 14.87m (she had set the indoor NR in Glasgow in 2019 with a 14.73m leap).
Fellow countryman and Spanish record holder Pablo Torrijos will aim to break the 17-meter-barrier for the third campaign in his career. The last time he competed indoors, the 29-year-old set an outright national record of 17.18m. Back in 2015, Torrijos won silver at the European Indoor Championship in Prague with his very first 17-meter jump (17.04m). In 2020, he got to win a World Indoor Tour meeting at Boston’s NB Indoor GP.
Since this indoor season, Torrijos has a new competitor for the national records and titles. Cuban-born Jordan Alejandro Díaz got the Spanish citizenship earlier in February and set a Spain’s leading mark of 16.37m in which was his first competition since the 2021 summer. The 20-year-old athlete personal bests are 17.49m outdoors and 17.07m indoors. Three 17-meter men and another 14-meter women complete the stacked field. They are Finland’s Simo Lipsanen (17.14m PB), Portugal’s Tiago Pereira (17.11m PB), Algeria’s Yasser Triki (17.43m PB) and Brazil’s Nubia Soares (14.69m PB).
